Photography

Mattie, De-Matted. Spoiler: It Ain't Purty.

I am not as diligent in grooming the dogs as I should be. If I had another few hours in each day I probably still wouldn't be diligent in grooming the dogs. Sadly, brushing their hair ranks far below vacuuming up their hair every 4 hours and cleaning up messes from two puppies who refuse to housebreak in a week. (The nerve, I know.) Even when I don't have puppies that need housebroken, I find other ways to entertain myself. Loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, paying bills - you know, all the stuff people can't wait to do on a regular basis.

And the dog goes unbrushed yet another day.

So after a year of "shoot, I forgot to brush the dog again," she's quite snarled and tangled.

Today I took her to the groomer for a trim. I should have known I was in trouble when she said, "Oh, I've never seen a Cavalier before! I'm so excited. They're such pretty dogs." I gave instructions to trim her short, and she'd probably have to just shave the ears close to get the matting out. I then walked out in full confidence that the dog would look something like this:

(Not my dog. Photo courtesy of Flickr.)

Nice short trim, right? For those not in the know, a Cavalier looks like this in all it's hairy glory:

(Also not my dog. Also courtesy of Flickr. Beautiful though, no?)

So after dropping the dog off I went about my day and promptly forgot about her. When I did think of Mattie, I was a little bit excited to see my neglected little dear a whole lot prettier. Imagine, then, my surprise when I saw this instead:

(Still, not my dog. But I'll be darned it looks just like her. Only better. I swear. I refuse to take a picture of her in all her humiliation.)

On the bright side, Micah thinks we got a new dog. Again. He spent half the night chasing her down trying to welcome her with open arms. She just wanted to go hide somewhere and pretend that her hair was growing really, really fast.